Google will fight secretive national security letters in court

The search giant has 0-999 problems, and an NSL may or may not be one.

The FBI has sent out tens of thousands of "national security letters" (NSLs) in the years following the 9/11 attacks, under expanded authority given to the bureau by the PATRIOT Act. The letters nearly always come with a "gag order" preventing the recipient from even revealing the existence of the letter.

A few weeks ago, the FBI's practice suffered its first major setback. A San Francisco federal judge ruled that sending letters with a gag order is unconstitutional because the gag orders take away recipients' free speech rights. That case was brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, representing an unnamed telecom company.

Now, Google has stepped forward to become the second company to challenge the letters, according to Bloomberg. The company's case is in front of the same judge who ruled the letters unconstitutional, US District Judge Susan Ilston. She ordered the FBI to stop sending the letters on March 14, but she stayed her order for 90 days so the agency could appeal.

Last week, the search giant filed court papers in a case called In Re Google Inc. Petition to set aside Legal Process. The court documents are mostly sealed, but one unsealed document in the case indicates that Google is challenging Section 2709 of Title 18, which deals with NSLs. That suggests Google is pushing back against a government demand for user information.

The government has issued more than 200,000 NSLs since 2000, according to Matt Zimmerman, the EFF attorney who successfully challenged NSLs in Ilston's court in the telecom case. Zimmerman told Bloomberg that Google's pushback is a good thing. “So far no one has really stood up for their users” among large Internet service providers, Zimmerman said.

Both Google and the FBI told Bloomberg they wouldn't comment on the case.

Last month, Google released its first "transparency report" regarding its receipt of NSLs, but the data it was allowed to release was almost comically vague. The company only said it had received between zero and 999 NSLs per year between 2009 and 2012.

These laws are really getting out of hand. It's similar to the super-injunctions which were slapped down recently in the UK, not only were organisations banned from reporting certain news items, they were banned from mentioning that they were banned, or even the vague existance of a ban itself.

Pity the US doesn't have anything like Parlimentary Privilage, here MPs can say what they like in the House of Commons and the press can report it verbatim in the interests of democracy. That's exactly what happened in the case of a few super-injunctions actually. Would love to see a member of Congress read out some of requests and see the extent of this abuse of power.

These laws are really getting out of hand. It's similar to the super-injunctions which were slapped down recently in the UK, not only were organisations banned from reporting certain news items, they were banned from mentioning that they were banned, or even the vague existance of a ban itself.

Pity the US doesn't have anything like Parlimentary Privilage, here MPs can say what they like in the House of Commons and the press can report it verbatim in the interests of democracy. That's exactly what happened in the case of a few super-injunctions actually. Would love to see a member of Congress read out some of requests and see the extent of this abuse of power.

These laws are really getting out of hand. It's similar to the super-injunctions which were slapped down recently in the UK, not only were organisations banned from reporting certain news items, they were banned from mentioning that they were banned, or even the vague existance of a ban itself.

Pity the US doesn't have anything like Parlimentary Privilage, here MPs can say what they like in the House of Commons and the press can report it verbatim in the interests of democracy. That's exactly what happened in the case of a few super-injunctions actually. Would love to see a member of Congress read out some of requests and see the extent of this abuse of power.

Actually, the US has the equivalent. Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution:

Quote:

They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

Actually, the US has the equivalent. Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution:

Quote:

They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

Would this not come under a Felony though? I know that MPs are protected even if the material is protected by the Offical Secrets Acts or if it interferes with an on-going Court case. Although I vaguely remember that the Pentagon Papers were released by a member of the House of Representatives I think.

These laws are really getting out of hand. It's similar to the super-injunctions which were slapped down recently in the UK, not only were organisations banned from reporting certain news items, they were banned from mentioning that they were banned, or even the vague existance of a ban itself.

Pity the US doesn't have anything like Parlimentary Privilage, here MPs can say what they like in the House of Commons and the press can report it verbatim in the interests of democracy. That's exactly what happened in the case of a few super-injunctions actually. Would love to see a member of Congress read out some of requests and see the extent of this abuse of power.

Can you say more about it? Looks like an interesting read.

This is the famous recent case. The Guardian were able to circumvent the gag order by referencing a Parliamentary question, that made the whole ball of string unravel.

Actually, the US has the equivalent. Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution:

Quote:

They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

Would this not come under a Felony though? I know that MPs are protected even if the material is protected by the Offical Secrets Acts or if it interferes with an on-going Court case. Although I vaguely remember that the Pentagon Papers were released by a member of the House of Representatives I think.

I don't think so. The section says they can be arrested during the session for felonies, but specifically and separately that their speech or debate in session is protected. Even with the current supreme court's record on civil rights in general, I don't see how they're going to uphold the arrest of a member of congress for dubious speech-crimes.

Actually, the US has the equivalent. Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution:

Quote:

They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

Would this not come under a Felony though? I know that MPs are protected even if the material is protected by the Offical Secrets Acts or if it interferes with an on-going Court case. Although I vaguely remember that the Pentagon Papers were released by a member of the House of Representatives I think.

The Felony portion applies to their protected from being arrested while in session (to prevent the President from detaining people who would vote against something he wants). The portion after the semicolon is the protection against being interrogated about what they said in Congress, and it doesn't limit itself in the same way.

The Pentagon Papers were indeed read into the congressional record by a Senator, and it led to a Supreme Court case that concluded that nobody could question him (or his aides) about it, though they could question them about possible crimes committed by other people that were related (such as, in this case, a proposed private printing of the Papers from the original sources). So the protection only applies to things they actually do as a member of Congress, rather than everything they do, but if a Congressman were to read statistics about NSLs into the record, that would be legal. I think the difficulty would be for them to get those statistics (and avoid being branded un-American for reading them, which is a real possibility).

how to dismantle public support for goverment while increasing confindence in large corps ability to protect populations(decade long plan):0) study the Nazi techniques and hire all prominent psychs of the day (see travistock) to work out orwellen methods of idea control

1) install 2 party system.

2) hold "town hall" debates where the questions are tightly screened (dont mention this in the media)

3) progressively paint anything other than the 2 corp sponsered parties as lunny or un electable

PHASE 2

1) elect leaders who favor the interests of business over people2) leaders launch wars directly beneficial to their former corps under the guise of revenge and spreading freedom3) pass laws allow the restricting of liberty and privacy of the public.4) elect puppet from the "people's" side of the false divide 5) have new puppet continue old puppets freedom restriction while publicly ending the war6)have corps apear to stand up for "the people" while in reality they doge federal taxes with laws set up by members of the parties that financed them.

On each website, post this notice."I am not currently a recipient of a NSL"

Problem solved

Usually gag orders prevent the recipient from even talking in the negative about the item being "gagged" about. Since the NSA is recording every damn thing being transmitted in the country, the Internet ISPs and service providers served with NSLs ought to tell the f*****g FBI to go get it from their buddies at the NSA.

These laws are really getting out of hand. It's similar to the super-injunctions which were slapped down recently in the UK, not only were organisations banned from reporting certain news items, they were banned from mentioning that they were banned, or even the vague existance of a ban itself.

Pity the US doesn't have anything like Parlimentary Privilage, here MPs can say what they like in the House of Commons and the press can report it verbatim in the interests of democracy. That's exactly what happened in the case of a few super-injunctions actually. Would love to see a member of Congress read out some of requests and see the extent of this abuse of power.

We do have something like that. We call it the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." It gives every person in the USA the right to do what your MPs can do, only they can do it anywhere an publish it as well. But Congress blatantly ignored that when they made a law allowing "National Security Letters."

We also have something like this: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." We call that the Fourth Amendment. Congress also conveniently ignored that as well.

NSL's blatantly violate our First and Fourth Amendment rights and Americans should feel free to ignore them or just plain tell the issuing agency that they are illegal and if they want to search LEGALLY they are encouraged to get a FISA warrant.

how to dismantle public support for goverment while increasing confindence in large corps ability to protect populations(decade long plan):0) study the Nazi techniques and hire all prominent psychs of the day (see travistock) to work out orwellen methods of idea control

1) install 2 party system.

2) hold "town hall" debates where the questions are tightly screened (dont mention this in the media)

3) progressively paint anything other than the 2 corp sponsered parties as lunny or un electable

PHASE 2

1) elect leaders who favor the interests of business over people2) leaders launch wars directly beneficial to their former corps under the guise of revenge and spreading freedom3) pass laws allow the restricting of liberty and privacy of the public.4) elect puppet from the "people's" side of the false divide 5) have new puppet continue old puppets freedom restriction while publicly ending the war6)have corps apear to stand up for "the people" while in reality they doge federal taxes with laws set up by members of the parties that financed them.

These laws are really getting out of hand. It's similar to the super-injunctions which were slapped down recently in the UK, not only were organisations banned from reporting certain news items, they were banned from mentioning that they were banned, or even the vague existance of a ban itself.

Pity the US doesn't have anything like Parlimentary Privilage, here MPs can say what they like in the House of Commons and the press can report it verbatim in the interests of democracy. That's exactly what happened in the case of a few super-injunctions actually. Would love to see a member of Congress read out some of requests and see the extent of this abuse of power.

+1 Orwellian Abuse of Power...........Government is totally off their rockers nowadays.They really suck and not just in the USA.

The idiots that approve such spying on citizens will not appreciate the damages they have done until they themselves are caught up in something they otherwise felt was off the radar. I trust that the ex CIA Director David Petraeus has a whole new appreciation of what the FBI was allowed to do.

Actually, the US has the equivalent. Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution:

They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

As a fairly educated person with a degree, this makes no sense to me. Is there a law that says all kaws mustbe written Iin such a manner so as to obfuscate the original meaning and jntent of the law? Why can't we just write stuff in English that the average person can understand?

Actually, the US has the equivalent. Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution:

They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

As a fairly educated person with a degree, this makes no sense to me. Is there a law that says all kaws mustbe written Iin such a manner so as to obfuscate the original meaning and jntent of the law? Why can't we just write stuff in English that the average person can understand?

Yes, the law of self-interest. It is utterly self-serving for a law person to write obfuscated laws. It generates business for the whole legal profession.